


A Home Game

by 743ish



Series: A Home Game [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 1950s, Baseball, Brooklyn, Canon Divergence, Cap Steve/Vintage Bucky, Dancing, Disabled Character, Falling quietly in love, First Meetings, M/M, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, PostWar, Technically not Shrunkyclunks, The Brooklyn Dodgers, War Veteran Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-27 19:52:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13255437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/743ish/pseuds/743ish
Summary: “You go to a lot of games?” Barnes asks.“Whenever I’m in town.”“How often is that?”Steve looks at him. It moves him, somehow. Just looking.===In 1952, Captain America takes a day off to catch a Dodgers game.





	A Home Game

 

_Ebbets Field, 1952_

 

“It’s gonna be our year.”

Steve glances at the guy next to him and snorts. 

“That's what we all thought last year,” he says. “Look what happened then.” 

He squints back out at the field. It's true, the Dodgers are looking good. They’ve won their last eight games on the road, and they’re playing Cincinnati today. They've only lost to Cincinnati once this whole season. 

They're on their way to the Pennant, maybe— _maybe_ —but the previous season is still painfully fresh in Steve’s mind, and he isn't going to jinx them.

The other guy shakes his head. “Nah,” he says. “I got a good feeling this year.”

“Oh, well,” says Steve, “that's reassuring, then.” He claps his hands as Roy Campanella comes out of the bullpen.

The guy doesn't clap, but bangs a hand rhythmically on his seat. “The way I see it, if you can't be optimistic at a ball game, you might as well stay home.”

Steve nods. “Guess I'm just worried about getting my heart broken again.”

The guy laughs through his nose. “Live like that, you'll never have any fun. Gotta take the lows with the highs.”

It's a cliché, but the guy’s not wrong. Better to have loved and lost, and all that. The Dodgers are personal, in Brooklyn. You root for them, win or lose.

He used to bring Peggy to Ebbets Field, right after he got home. They’d sit in the sun all day and cheer at the good plays and not think about the war even once. He never cared much who won the games, just wanting a lazy day out, the feeling of doing something normal and familiar, enjoying her and watching her enjoy him.

He comes to games by himself now. It’s fine with him. He follows the Dodgers religiously, just like when he was a kid. He finds, these days, he cares a hell of a lot whether they win. 

At least it doesn't hurt to think of Peggy anymore. He knows she's happy now, and he's happy too, in his way. Satisfied, at least. He has nothing to complain about.

The Cincinnati pitcher winds up and throws. The swing is terrible, and the crowd groans when the umpire calls the strike.

The other guy curses. “With this team,” he says, “sometimes the lows can get pretty damn low, I’ll give you that.”

“I just don't want a repeat of last year,” Steve says. They'd been so close to being champions, only to have it ripped away at the last moment. It had hurt. “Anything but that.”

“I hear ya, pal,” the guy says. He’s got a bag of peanuts, and he tosses one into his mouth. “I stayed in bed for two days after Game Three.” 

Steve turns to look at him. He’s older than his voice suggested, around Steve’s age. Dark hair, sun-browned skin, a white shirt with the short sleeves rolled up. Steve realizes the left sleeve is empty at the same time as the guy looks at him properly. 

Blue eyes, unexpectedly pale. An elevator-drop in Steve's gut.

“Holy shit,” the guy says. “You’re Steve Rogers.”

Steve tries to keep the disappointment from showing on his face. He goes to games as a civilian, and it's half the reason he cherishes them so much. It’s always a risk that someone will notice him, but he thought today he might be lucky. 

Somehow, in this moment, the irritation at being recognized is closer to despair. But he smiles and holds out his hand for a shake. “That’s right. Good to meet you.”

The guy stares at him for a second, then returns the shake. “Bucky. Bucky Barnes. It’s an honor, Captain.”

“Um,” he stammers. “Just Steve.”

“Steve,” Barnes repeats. He clears his throat and looks away.

“You from around here?” Steve asks. He wants, inexplicably, to see those eyes again.

But the guy just nods absently and looks at the field and doesn't say anything more.

After that, he gets fidgety, bouncing his knee and looking sideways at Steve every few minutes. He works the peanuts out of their shells with one hand, deftly, like it’s easy. Steve watches him do it in the corner of his eye. 

He wants to talk to him. He has no idea what to say, though, and anyway it's awkward now. He can see he’s making the guy nervous. He isn’t surprised—everyone always gets like this around Captain America. 

There’s nothing he can do about it. He’s tried. It’s just a fact of his life that he's never been charming or suave. He's mad at himself now; it was stupid to try and go unnoticed in the cheap seats. To think he could have a goddamn regular conversation, just one time.

They watch Campanella take some more practice swings, and everyone cheers when he finally gets a hit. The crowd is upbeat; the weather’s great. Steve had been so glad to take a day off for this. But the afternoon’s gone sour now. Maybe he’ll head out early.

Then Barnes sits up and says suddenly, “I was in the 107th.” Steve turns to him in surprise, but Barnes keeps his eyes on the field. “In ‘43. I don't know if you remember—”

“I remember,” Steve says. He remembers every second of the war in blazing Technicolor, for better or worse, but that’s not what he means. Even without the serum, there's no way he could ever forget what happened with the 107th. “Azzano, right?” 

Barnes is leaning forward with his elbow on his knee, and he turns his head and squints at him. Then he nods and looks away.

Shit. Some of those boys got torturedafter Azzano. Steve’s eyes widen a little.

“They didn't—in there—I mean—” he stumbles. There's not a lot Steve flinches away from, especially not when talking to a soldier about war. But they’re at a ball game in Brooklyn on a perfect summer day. The least he can do is spare this man the indignity of the question _did the Nazis cut off your arm._

Barnes interprets his fumbling. “What, this?” He indicates his empty left sleeve. “Nah. I got hit in the firefight after you broke us out. Doctors couldn't save it.”

Fuck. “I'm sorry,” Steve says. 

Barnes smiles a little, but there's something in his face that reminds Steve of what he sees in the mirror after one too many sleepless nights. “Could have been worse,” he says. 

“That's true.”

“You saved my whole unit. Saved my life.” He shakes his head. “I always wanted to thank you for that.”

“That's not necessary,” Steve says, but it's on reflex, and it's the wrong thing to say. 

Barnes takes a moment to answer. "Maybe it ain't necessary,” he says, looking out at the field, “but I always wanted to say it anyway. That okay with you, if I say thank you for getting me home in one piece?”

Steve nods, holds up his hands. “Yeah. Yeah. Of course.”

“Well, good. Thank you.” Then he twists his mouth and shrugs the bad shoulder. “Maybe not quite one piece.”

“Enough, though,” Steve says. He thinks of the plane crash, the ice rushing up to meet him. Saying his goodbyes. Seven years have passed, but it doesn’t scare him any less, that memory. “Right?” he says, when Barnes doesn’t respond. “Getting home is enough.”

Barnes looks at him, then. Frankly, without a hint of pretense. Like he _sees_ him, with those pale eyes, and there’s a rush of pressure in Steve’s chest. 

“I guess you'd know something about that, wouldn't you?” Barnes says.

Steve takes a breath. The pressure grows inside him, and he recognizes it suddenly as desire. The shock sends him glancing hastily away. 

He stares at the bright field and lets out a long breath to calm himself before he answers.

“Guess I would.”

===

The Dodgers win. Barnes whoops and bangs on the seat, then stands and crumples up his empty peanut bag.

“You walking, Steve?”

He stands up and stretches. “Might as well. Beautiful day.”

“Company’s not bad either.”

“Oh, I don't know about that.”

“Ah, come on. Don't hurt my feelings, now.”

“Okay,” Steve says. He takes the risk of flicking his eyes over Barnes, a tall drink of water when he's on his feet. He smiles. “The company isn't bad.”

Barnes huffs and says _Jesus_ under his breath. He doesn't mean for Steve to hear it. But Steve hears it, and he thinks hard on it as he follows Barnes out to the street.

It's a Saturday, so the crowd is big, and they have to fight their way through all the milling kids and the loafing teenagers around the entrance. Once they get loose from the press of people, they fall into step, walking slowly, side by side.

They don't speak. Steve doesn't know where they're going. He came here on the subway, and he has a vague notion that they'll end up at the station. But it hardly matters; they’re walking close.

He doesn't know if Barnes is queer. He doesn't even know if _he’s_ queer, not really, not like that. He thinks maybe that's what this is, though. He thinks it's what the silence means. If there were nothing there, they’d be talking about something. 

They continue down Franklin Ave, and cross a side street. Steve doesn't remember its name, but he's crossed it a hundred times before. A thousand. Now for the first time he stares down it, and wonders what's at the other end.

Barnes smokes a slow cigarette while they walk. He looks straight ahead, matching Steve's strides, and Steve doesn't let himself look over. 

The silence grows, and it means what it means. 

They reach a corner, and Barnes stops and clears his throat. His eyes dart up to Steve's, and then away. “My place is just up here,” he says. “Come in and have a beer?” 

There's the drop in his belly again. Steve waits, a bit too long, but his voice is steady and he aims for casual when he rubs his neck and says, “Okay. Thanks.”

===

It's an old two-story place, white clapboard on a corner lot. It’s tidy inside. Barnes hands him a beer from the icebox and they sit in the small living room. The drapes are pulled across the windows against the late afternoon sun. The room glows a dim gold. 

“Hell of a game, huh?” Barnes says. He’s fiddling with the dial on the radio.

“It was,” Steve says. “Glad I could catch it.”

Barnes settles on something older and jazzy. Ella Fitzgerald, maybe; Steve doesn’t know the song.

“You go to a lot of games?” Barnes asks.

“Whenever I’m in town.”

“How often is that?”

Steve looks at him. It moves him, somehow. Just looking.

He takes too long to answer, and clears his throat. “Uh, well, I live here. In Brooklyn, you know. So I’m here as much as possible. I travel, but I’m always...you know, I’m always back.”

“It’ll always be home, huh?”

Steve smiles. “Damn right.”

“Damn right,” Barnes echoes. Then his mouth turns up a little more. “It better be, now you got a big damn statue and everything.”

Steve groans. “Oh, God. Don’t. Christ, that godawful thing.”

Barnes' face lights up in a real, whole smile. “C’mon, be proud of it, Steve!”

Steve shakes his head, puts his hand over his eyes. “It’s the worst fucking statue I’ve ever seen in my life,” he mutters.

Barnes laughs. The sound is—good. Steve takes a long pull of beer.

The radio switches to something slower. The silence between them returns, not awkward, but big. It means what it means. 

Steve presses his fingers into the neck of the beer bottle, careful not to break it, concentrating on the coolness of the drops on the glass. The fact of the closed curtains keeps sticking in his brain, and he can't think straight.

“Hey, uh,” Barnes says, and then stops. He gives a little embarrassed laugh, shakes his head. “Never mind.”

“What?”

“Uh. It's just this song,” he says, looking into his bottle absently. “Reminds me of going dancing. You ever go dancing, much?”

Steve thinks of Peggy, her red dress, perfect steps, patiently letting him lead. He looks up to Barnes and shakes his head. “Not in a long time,” he says. “You?”

Barnes shrugs his left shoulder forward. “Not since this.”

“Right.”

He puffs another small laugh, a little rueful. “I, um. I miss it, you know? I used to go all the time.”

“You any good?”

“I was okay.”

Steve nods. Barnes is built, strong and lean. He moves with competence and grace, but muted, careful. Steve thinks of how he must have been before his injury; all of this same strength and beauty, but at ease, and unaware of what a war can do. It makes him ache. 

“Yeah,” he says. “I bet you were good.”

It comes out breathier than he intended. Barnes raises an eyebrow, and his smile changes to something teasing. Steve grins at the floor.

“How about you, Captain America? You're a dancer, I bet,” Barnes says.

Steve snorts and shakes his head, but when he glances up, Barnes' eyes are crinkling. 

“Don't be modest. You gotta know your stuff, all those parties and shit.”

“I avoid it every way I know how.”

“Why?” He's laughing then, and it's more than Steve can do to keep looking at him; it fills his chest too much, and he has to blink away. 

“I'm—” he laughs too, “I'm no good for anything faster than a waltz.”

“Oh, no. What? That's terrible!”

“And even then I need to count out loud.”

Barnes laughs loudly at that, and Steve huffs and smiles and can't watch him. 

They sip their beers.

“Do you want to?” 

Steve snaps his head up. “What. Dance?”

Barnes is looking down at his hand, and he bobs his head. “Yeah.”

Steve waits, just a moment. If there's a point of no return, they've already passed it. He might as well be honest. “Yes.”

Barnes doesn't move for a second, leaning over his beer with his arm on his knee. But after a moment, he sits back in the chair and runs his fingers through his hair, and looks Steve in the face. 

Steve looks back, steady, though he feels like he could float away. The moment lengthens. The song drones on, the sun spills in around the sides of the drapes, and they hold each other's eyes. Steve doesn’t breathe. Neither of them speak.

They meet in the middle of the room. They watch each other’s faces. Steve steps in close, maneuvers his arm around Barnes' waist, tightly, to compensate for the lack of an arm around his neck. Barnes lets him, going easily. 

Steve finds Barnes' hand and takes it gently, raising it to the side, feeling the calluses on his palm. That touch—just the gentle hand-hold—shakes him: the rightness of it, the depth of it. The electricity in his fingertips, and that swell in his chest. 

Barnes is warm through his shirt and Steve slides his left hand up his back, splaying his hand out, pressing his fingers into the cotton, to hold him, to make him feel held. He looks at Barnes, their faces close, and his breath stutters as he takes the first step.

It's a sad, slow song, and they move slowly, shoes shushing on the dusty floorboards. After a minute, Barnes takes his eyes off Steve and settles closer, so their faces are almost touching, looking over each other's shoulders. 

It's a shuffle, nothing more than that. Steve stops thinking about his feet immediately, anyway. Barnes is so close, his torso pressed hard against Steve’s, his breath right next to Steve's ear. Their fingers shift over each other, careful. He can feel Barnes’ heart banging next to his own.

Steve turns them, slowly, awkward in the small space. Barnes follows his feet like a shadow, and Steve smiles. His chin rubs against the collar of Barnes' shirt. He wants to turn his head, but he knows it would be too much, lead them away from where they are. This is enough, for now. Somehow he knows it’s enough for them both. 

They've stopped taking steps by the time the song finishes, just swaying slowly on the spot. The radio starts up a faster number, and Barnes lets go of Steve's hand for a second, to reach over to the shelf and click it off.

He comes right back into position as the quiet settles around them. Steve takes his hand again. He wants to say something, but he doesn't know how. It's too much for words. He squeezes Barnes’ hand, gently. 

It's a confession. It’s the most he dares. Barnes squeezes back, and brings their joined hands to rest on his chest between them. 

There’s no sound now but their breathing, and the distant traffic outside. They sway in the golden afternoon glow.

Steve had woken up this morning wanting for nothing. Things were fine. He knew how his day was gonna go, how all the days would go from here on out. No surprises. Just how things were. 

Now, he’s completely cast adrift. He doesn't know what comes next. Maybe he should be afraid, but there's no room for that in him. All he can think is that he doesn't want to let go of this person, this man who’s quietly detonated his life in the space of an afternoon. 

Steve stares over Barnes' shoulder and holds him tight and breathes him in for as long as he can.

===

He walks home in the lengthening shadows. Tomorrow he'll go to D.C. for some meetings, and from there to Chicago on the 12th. He’s back and forth a lot lately. It's gotten rare to get a full week at home.

Before he leaves, he tells Barnes he’ll be back for the next home game. “Don't want to miss a pitch this season, if I can help it.”

Barnes smiles softly from inside the screen door. Steve isn’t so shy, now; he watches the smile, wants it, chases the gut-shot feeling it gives him. 

“I’ll hold you to that,” Barnes says.

Steve nods. “Dodgers are looking pretty good.”

“I’m telling you,” Barnes says as he closes the door, “it’s gonna be our year.”

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my fantastic beta, [Dreadnought](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Dreadnought/pseuds/Dreadnought).

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] A Home Game](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16500365) by [brideofquiet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/brideofquiet/pseuds/brideofquiet)




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